Today programme: "Voltaire's lost letters discovered"

"Professor Nicholas Cronk, the director of Oxford University's Voltaire Foundation, told the Today programme that the letters confirm that Voltaire was paid £200 by the British government for being a great poet."

"While here he was exposed to ideas of English writers and later took empiricism back to the Continent where it became the basis for the enlightenment," says Professor Cronk.

"These newly discovered letters are therefore very interesting because they show how Voltaire's close interaction with the English aristocracy exposed him to these ideas and help us to piece together the nature of those interactions."

The Guardian: "Letters reveal Voltaire's exposure to English empiricism"

"New letters from a man who is thought to have written at least 20,000 during his long lifetime are not unusual, but the latest batch of 14 — uncovered in the New York public library’s archives by the Oxford University professor Nicholas Cronk, who lectures in medieval and modern languages — shines fresh light on the three years Voltaire spent in England in the late 1720s."

Huffington Post: "Voltaire Letters Shed Light On Years In England"

Professor Nicholas Cronk, director of the university's Voltaire Foundation, says "Voltaire spent two important but relatively undocumented years in England in his early thirties at a time when he was best known as a poet - he arrived with only a recommendation from the British Ambassador to Paris."

Le Figaro: "des lettres de Voltaire découvertes"

An academic from Oxford University has discovered new letters written by Voltaire during his two years in England from 1726-8, which underline the influence of British intellectuals on the French philosopher’s ideas. Professor Nicholas Cronk, director of the Voltaire Foundation, explains his findings.